Do Not Cast Your Pearls Before Swine

In 2008, an earthquake struck Sichuan, China and killed a massive number of Chinese. Recently, an event commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the natural disaster was held in Sichuan. One would think that on such a solemn occasion, the Chinese authorities would respect the dead and take on a more passive role. However, true to their nature, the Chinese authorities had to ruin the seriousness of it all by making a big fuss about foreign media covering the event.

On the 12th of May, 2018, a journalist from Hong Kong media Cable TV was assaulted whilst covering the anniversary event in Sichuan. According to this journalist, Chan Ho Fai, another journalist was being assaulted by Chinese in civilian clothing at the time. When he went forward to look into what was happening, Chan was also assaulted, with kicks and stomps to his head and hands. No one came to his help. The Cable TV journalist and his crew immediately went online to report the incident, and the news went viral in Hong Kong to the point that the SAR regime had to issue a statement in regards to the matter. Hong Kong SAR regime’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam did not condemn such an act of brutality and savagery on a member of the Hong Kong press. Instead, she stated that the appropriate authorities in Sichuan and China as a nation would investigate the matter. When pressed to make a statement on whether the SAR regime would follow up on this gross violation of Hong Kong’s supposedly free press, Lam declined responsibility and said that it was rather the job of the Sichuan authorities to do so. According to her, the SAR regime has no role in following up on the incident.

Unfortunately, this was not the only incident against foreign media coverage on the Sichuan earthquake anniversary. According to Strait Times, journalists from Agence France-Presse (AFP) were manhandled by local plain-clothed authorities when they sought to interview local visitors at the Jianchuan Museum, in which the “miraculous” porcine survivor of the earthquake was kept. Given the name “Zhu Jianqiang” by the Chinese (meaning “strong-willed pig”), the sow survived the earthquake despite being trapped under debris by surviving on rainwater and charcoal, and was celebrated as a miracle. After the AFP journalists covered the pig, they tried to get statements from Chinese visitors about their views on the disaster. Local authorities responded by pouncing and roughly kicking the foreign journalists out of the museum, and then following them until they were out of the town’s borders.

First thing first, of all the survivors of the earthquake, why on earth did the Chinese authorities celebrate a pig as a “national hero”? The answer would be because a pig could tell no tale. In the wake of the earthquake, accusations were made against the Chinese authorities in regards to the appalling construction quality of the school buildings as a cause of the deaths of thousands of children, since the extent of the damage to the buildings was incommensurate with the magnitude of the quake. True to the Chinese regime’s nature, the only news reports permissible on the disaster and the anniversaries of it are those that portray heroism and other similar “jacking off” news reports. This is the real reason why national and local authorities are wary of any foreign journalists poking their nose into the incident and its anniversaries thereof, and why they would only allow the news coverage of the pig.

For Hong Kongers, this anniversary raises the ire of many despite the fact that there was a great deal of support and donation for the Chinese at the time. A high school girl at the time posted her criticism of the whole thing as a sham, to which many Hong Kong netizens lambasted her for her cold-heartedness. Members of the online forum HK Galden, for instance, went even so far as to dig up every detail of the poor girl, and forced her to publicly apologise and go into hiding. Yet only a few years after the event, the Chinese people seem to have forgotten about Hong Kong’s charity and generosity. Furthermore, since the D&G incident in 2010, the Chinese populace has been looking at Hong Kongers with contempt. Later on, it was reported that much of the donation from all over the world had been embezzled by authorities in China for their personal gains, and that the rebuilt schools – funded by Hong Kong taxpayers and donors – had been demolished for commercial reasons soon after the feel-good charade for the Hong Kong delegation was over. So from 2013 onwards, many Hong Kongers began the movement of never again donating a cent to any Chinese disasters. After counts of Chinese netizens making light of tragedies involving Hong Kongers, there is growing apathy among Hong Kongers towards the Chinese, if not making light of the Chinese in turn for their tragedies.

Now that a Hong Kong reporter was assaulted only for doing his job and fulfilling his duty as a journalist, that ire has been raised once again. No wonder why many Hong Kongers feel no camaraderie towards the Chinese, and the call for Hong Kong’s independence and the rejection of a Chinese identity is popular amongst younger Hong Kongers. Is it not absurd that the Chinese are offended that Hong Kongers reject being identified as Chinese, when the Chinese themselves are the ones responsible for it all in the first place?

Rather than remembering how Hong Kongers showed grace, generosity and charity for them, or even remembering the poor oversight of construction that led to the deaths of thousands of kids in during the earthquake, these Chinese choose to celebrate a porcine survivor of the disaster instead. Doesn’t that suggest they identify with a pig more than with people? In this case, why should Hong Kongers respect them as people?

As Christ once said in Matthew 7:6, “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and tear you”, why should we Hong Kongers continue to fund the Chinese for their savagery? We should pay them not a farthing, not a cent.

Enough is enough.

(Screenshot of Cable News video regarding the assault of its reporter on i-Cable.com, May 12, 2018)